


Eyes of the Storm

by Eluvian



Category: Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, Identity, Revan finds out who she was, Saul Karath's ship, Trust, identity crisis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:16:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27884371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eluvian/pseuds/Eluvian
Summary: I glance down at my hands. I know I do not want her memories but surely they will come to me anyway. I tthink back to the deaths she has committed and try to accept that somehow, it was me.My eyes must have been like theirs, golden, metallic, like a beast's. My skin pale like the dead. I look into my bright blue eyes and imagine them yellow.I know why Revan did what she did. I remember now. I remember the feeling of the warm wind on my face and the thought that no one could ever defeat me. I also remember Carth's words saying he wants to protect me.Who am I and who do I want to be?
Relationships: Carth Onasi/Female Revan, Carth Onasi/Revan
Kudos: 10





	Eyes of the Storm

_But I can't compete with the she-wolf who has brought me to my knees_

_What do you see in those yellow eyes?_

_As I'm falling to pieces..._

_\- She Wolf_

We are trapped. We are joined together and act fast, faster than I thought possible. We discuss who will get us out. I am thinking. It is possible they will die. Although, it is possible we will all die.

No, we won’t. I know we won’t. I somehow feel like even if I faced Malak I would get out of it alive. Even for myself. And for them? I will fight for them.

Excitement rushes through my veins.

Mission. She could get out of everywhere.

Although, she is not the best fighter. And that is an understatement.

The clock is ticking. I make my decision. I trust my life onto her. She is a kid, but one of the best I have met.

They follow me, they listen to me, and for the first time in a long while it feels natural. It seems like I have been planning escapes like this in my whole life. I want to smile in the face of danger. I wonder if this is wrong. It must be. It should be. If Bastila knew what I was thinking…

I feel that she is watching me. She is close to me, as a friend, and also as a supervisor. When she first mentioned our bond I was afraid maybe she could hear all my thoughts. Or some of them.

Afraid.

I shouldn’t have been…

No time to think about that now. We run. We flee. I don’t like it. I want to face him. I want to look into his eyes, I feel like I would know more about myself if I did.

We are trapped. We weren’t fast enough. We are facing him. Saul. The whole purpose of Carth being here with me now. The sadness of that grips at my heart again. The only thing that has been keeping him was… revenge.

When I think about it, revenge tastes fine, but what would come after?

I have already asked him that. He said he didn’t know.

He has a son. Dustil seemed like a grown man. Almost. Physically. So his father must be… I never asked him about his age. But he seems much younger than that.

Bastila, Carth and I are all set up in cylindrical containers, closed behind force fields. We can’t move. We can only speak, but none of us does.

We are stripped naked except for the underwear that covers whatever dignity we have left.

Which is not much. But I don’t care. The pain we share is already intimate. We might die in the following hours. What’s to be ashamed of?

Thinking of possibly dying, I… have the urge to talk to them. To tell them something. I don’t know what. I want to thank them. For existing. For being here with me. I am not sure they want to hear that, so I say nothing.

Saul is watching us with the confidence and patronizing of someone who knows he is more than us and is expecting us to whine like children the next moment. I can see a… smile in the corner of his mouth?

He plans to torture us. He even seems tired of it. It does not thrill him like it used to. He wants more.

Why do I know these? I seem to imagine things in his mind that I am not sure are even there.

The dark forces swirl around me like easy clothing, teasing, caressing my skin, waiting for me to embrace them.

I shiver.

Saul activates something and all I can hear is our screams. I don’t even remember starting to scream. My mouth is open though, and uncontrolled voices are escaping it. I cannot say which part of my body hurts. I don’t think it is my body. It is my mind. The pain is channelled directly to our minds, so however we’d move, we couldn’t shake it off.

We try though.

I have never heard them being so weak.

I have never heard myself being so weak. I think.

Saul stops. He says he does not want us to pass out before Malak arrives.

_But I will face Malak without these force fields,_ I think. I will face him with my lightsaber in hand. Or if not… No, I probably could not defeat him without one. Could I?

Saul’s voice breaks my chain of thought. He says he will interrogate me. And if I refuse to answer, he will hurt Carth.

I expected it the other way round.

He really knows the ways to torture me. I curse between my teeth, though he can probably hear, and he surely likes it.

I must say nothing. Our mission must remain a secret. Mission. Mission will save us. I must not talk about Mission. I must not think about Mission. They can mess with minds.

He asks his first question. Where is the Jedi academy I was trained at?

I attempt to lie to him. I say it was on Alderaan.

I never lie. And that is the problem. I am in pain and cannot think of an answer that at least makes sense. He sees through it right away. He says it is time for my punishment. I wince and growl, I want to tear him apart.

Carth screams. Blue flashes of light touch my vision. I close my eyes. Stop, my mind screams. Just stop!

The sounds stop.

The next question arrives. I am hesitating. Saul will not kill Carth just yet. He will not. Surely he will not. He must have prepared a better scheme, for Malak. He must wait for him. Why would he kill off Malak’s playthings before he arrives?

I am trying to convince myself…

I attempt to come up with another lie, but it also fails. Again, the screams come back. Now it seems as if I’ve been hearing them forever. And I realise I am only postponing the inevitable.

I am a coward to directly say that I won’t answer. So I just come up with a lie. That’s what I did, I realise.

Carth begs for the pain to stop. A thought occurs in me. He is pathetic.

The thought contradicts what I usually think of him. The thought is… innate. Strong. He is pathetic and I know it. “Mercy.” He dared speak this word. This word makes me want to crush-

What am I thinking?

I should be protecting him. A moment ago a teardrop fell off my face because of his suffering. And now…

I try to shake off the contempt. This is not me. This is Malak’s influence on me, must be. He is approaching.

Saul asks what we are looking for.

The most important question. I curse myself. I cannot lie now, he will notice. And I cannot deny the answer. Who knows if Carth will survive that long?

I imagine Saul laughing into his fists while I crouch crying over Carth’s dead body.

I imagine myself laughing into my fist while Carth and Bastila lie on the floor, dead. I feel myself not caring, above them, believing they were a needed sacrifice. I feel myself free.

I shake my head. My shoulders rise and fall uncontrollably as I cannot stop my sobs anymore.

Saul warns me of my punishment. He orders me to answer. I detest him ordering me. I am no one to order!

I must… must save them. I know if I thought for a moment longer I would change my decision, so I just say it right away.

“We were looking for the Star Forge.”

“Why did you tell him?!” Bastila asks right away, and I feel shame. I have failed the Jedi. I have failed it all. I am shaking. What if Saul will hurt him even now? What if he was lying…

But no. The punishment does not arrive. I sigh with relief.

Saul asks one more question. I refuse to give up any more information. I await my punishment.

I try to close my ears to the screams and cries. I feel now that Carth is pathetic. I don’t want to think that.

I refuse to.

I don’t know what happens. I am crying now. We are alone in the room. Distantly, I hear Bastila’s soothing words. She says the information I shared wasn’t too much. Possibly Malak knew it anyway. I withstood what I could.

Carth compliments my strength. I just shake my head. He says I am remarkably strong. He says if he saw me suffer the same way, he might have cracked.

I sob quietly.

Of course he would.

He cannot stand people getting hurt.

Apparently I do.

I don’t know why I did this. I keep telling myself it was necessary, and I try to numb the thoughts which say I did it because I somehow _like_ to see him suffer. I try to numb the curiosity in me which surely must originate from the dark side.

Or I am paranoid. I how what to expect and I am shading everything I do with it.

Maybe.

I hope so.

I just keep repeating that I’m sorry I hurt him. He says he doesn’t mind. Then I apologize again and he repeats. And then, silence falls.

I mutter something, try to come up with plans.

Then silence falls again.

The chaos in my mind overwhelms me. I don’t know what I want. Who these people are around me. Who I am. Am I really that easy to defeat just with pain?

And not even my own?

I realise that the storm inside me is barely visible on the outside. I feel my face go blank, totally blank, tears long dried up. I am a speechless shell, waiting. Waiting to be let out and finally fight. I want to make Saul regret what he has done to us. I want…

Revenge. Yes. But this is MY own wish. I am not being influenced.

No, I am not. They trust me.

Oh, how fragile I have become. I must gather my strength for when Malak arrives. He cannot see me like this. _I_ cannot see me like this.

And finally… after ages… the doors slide open with a hiss.

My eyes lit up. I think all three of us awakes again at that moment. We are free. Mission has got out and saved us!

She is horrified by the way we look. Almost naked, tired, empty. She asks what happened and when Carth and I don’t say anything, Bastila answers her briefly.

We leave that cursed place, finally able to move, freely. We acquire our clothing. Being in it again slowly brings back my memories of being myself.

I try to forget those hours. Try to create a shell and make them seem like they didn’t happen. Like I did not let Carth suffer so much. Like I didn’t think those things about him.

We flee on. I am ready to face him now. All my anger will be channelled-

A thought interrupts. I am not supposed to feel anger. I don’t care. I KNOW that I can channel it against Malak. I just know.

Carth is failing in hiding his glances from me. I just look at him from time to time and know that he wants to tell me something. And I want to hear. But we are not alone. And I want us to be alone. Again, Bastila’s surveillance… I feel like she would not approve of what we want to speak of.

She would not approve of me wanting to hide from her either. I feel a pang of guilt.

We have to go to the bridge. Out to space, because the door is locked. We get into space suits that we acquired from the armoury. We are funny, big cylinders with balls as heads now. White balls. Covered, hidden from sight.

We step into the outside. The spaceship under us, next to us, we seem to hover there in the nothingness. The space suit is the only thing that keeps us safe. That keeps us alive.

I stare into the billion freckles of the universe. Many, many stars glimmer and shine on the dark canvas in front of us. I enjoy to look at them, they are beautiful. It feels like if I reached out with my hand, I could touch them. They would be tiny things in my hands. I could squeeze them.

But I don’t want to.

What if we meet Malak and some of us does not survive? I think. There is a strong chance.

So that’s why I ask him in the end. Ask him what he wants. He’d never tell if I didn’t ask… at least sometimes it appears that way.

He warns me about some upcoming danger, saying I will become a target. I cannot see his eyes now, he is hidden, maybe that is why it is easier for him to speak. It bothers me.

Again, his words convey that he cares for me and I… like that. He knows and I know that our time is limited and we do not have forever to gaze at the stars, of course, so with every step we just slow down for a bit. My heart beats faster as we are nearing the door, as then we would have to enter the building again. This, now? It’s like time has stopped a bit.

I told him before that he needs to find a new purpose after killing Saul. He says that purpose would be to protect me. Part of me wants to reply I don’t need protecting. Part of me wants to caress his face.

I am glad nobody can see my face now. I feel safe inside, I cannot be touched, cannot be seen, I am safe.

I ask him why he wants to protect me.

He says because he couldn’t protect his wife and son.

A thought in me asks “Do you only want a replacement?” but I know it isn’t true.

He says he isn’t sure whether it means anything to me-

I cut him off and I say it does. It means a lot. I mentally put my finger on his lip and smile at him.

Bastila urges us to go on. I can imagine her rolling her eyes.

Finally we meet him.

The lower half of his face is non-existent, replaced by some kind of tech, which makes his voice robotic. It fits him.

His laughter makes my mouth twist with contempt. He is pathetic. This time the thought is even stronger. I feel unnatural anger towards him. He speaks as if he knows something that I don’t. He is talking about some kind of reunion.

So we’ve met before? How could we?

I cannot seem to keep up the appearance of confidence, so I ask. I must ask, or else they will just laugh at me.

Malak asks if I really don’t know. I reply that I don’t. What is this secret they’ve been keeping from me?

Then Malak shows me some kind of… vision.

It is a memory.

A dark shape stands above statues of old entities, on a planet bright with red sunset. His face is masked.

Her face is masked.

I know it’s a her.

She reaches for the mask and slowly takes it off, waiting for the warm air to touch her face again. I know it because I’m feeling it.

I am her.

I breathe in the air and the redness of the sunset, filling my lungs with power. I am full. Free. Huge. Invincible.

I switch back to reality… no… the present.

Malak calls me by her name.

Revan.

I don’t understand. It must be a joke. A trick. Forcing something on me that isn’t…

He keeps repeating this name and watches me wince every time with the lack of comprehension. He finds it so funny, me boasting with the light side and having these pawns by my side.

Pawns by my side... Were those his words or mine? Pawns. Bastila and Carth. A Jedi who fails to hide her emotions that the Jedi code wants so much. A Jedi who gives in to violence. As does everyone. They are only lying to themselves if they think they can escape it… And a pathetic soldier who chases his revenge, but will find nothing when he reaches it. A weakling who is just a man and gives me those looks, as if he could even _hope_ that I would-

I interrupt the chain of thought. I don't like it.

Are those my thoughts or _hers_?

We demand Bastila to explain. And she does not refuse. I can see she is nervous. She is ashamed that she’s been lying to me and-

She is afraid of me.

Carth I do not dare to look at. That must be what his previous mentor told him. Even in his last moments that bastard…

I am searching for some fragments or memories that might prove whether what they are telling is true or not.

What am I?

A soldier with no solid purpose other than to serve whomever she had to serve. Then? By accident, a capable Force user, a very strong one at that, who ACCIDENTALLY gets into contact with Bastila, a strong Jedi apprentice and is taken to the Dantooine Academy…

I remember their words. With contempt. How remarkable is it to learn the Jedi arts so quickly! Nobody managed to do it this quick for the first time! I see you are quite skilled, my apprentice…

Huh. First time.

For the first time.

It was easy for me because it wasn’t the first time.

I just stand there, looking at Darth Malak in amazement while he laughs at me while I’m processing what he just said.

I try to make it make sense.

I am Darth Revan. I repeat it over and over again.

It does not make sense.

Bastila says the Jedi have reprogrammed her brain. After saving her. Because all life is sacred.

Yes, and because they needed to know where the Star Forge was.

So Revan was… a puppet to saving the galaxy.

Revan’s _body_ was, I corrected myself..

The next thing I know, Carth and Bastila are frozen next to me. They hover above ground, their bodies trapped behind a shield made by Malak, lightning blue tendrils enveloping them.

He wants to fight me.

Suddenly I am the person who I was five minutes ago and I am terrified because Darth Malak has just pulled out his lightsaber and attacked me. I fight back instinctively, although I have to process that I am fighting with the current lord of the Sith.

But then I remember... they say I used to be his master. If this is true, I must know how to beat him. I must be better than him. On the other hand.. I must have _taught_ him tricks.

And he remembers now, but I don't. He has that advantage.

Something rises in me, a nice, warm-cold shiver going through me and it feels oddly familiar. He has challenged me like this before. We have fought before. He and _her_ have fought before.

Surprisingly enough, even though he puts up a good fight, he seems to fall back due to my attacks.

Because he is alone and I am fighting for the two crewmates next to me. And for myself. Who is... an interesting question.

Malak seems to tire. He opens the door behind him and flees. The coward.

I turn to Carth and Bastila, try to wake them, try using my hands, the Force, my voice, nothing helps. They are still trapped. My heart beats so fast...

I shout, cry Malak's name, calling him a coward and ordering him to come back here at once. To show himself. To face me.

I don't know who says the words, Revan or I. It does not matter. I have to fight him.

The side doors are still open. I slide through them, entering a seemingly endless labyrinth, opening door after door, not even stopping to catch my breath. I will hunt this bastard down.

Finally I encounter him again, and he charges at me with regained strength, but I am not giving up so easily.

I can barely stand. He is... fierce and cruel, and my thoughts get interrupted by too many memories. My desperation reaches my eyes. If I fail, he kills them too, they are helpless. Dustil will lose his father and I will lose... nothing, because I have already lost my life, but I don't want him to die. I am crazy, I don't want him to die.

I block Malak's attack with my lightsaber. All that my eyes see are the purple light of my saber and the red shimmer of his.

If he takes Bastila, it is over. What will become of the world? Oppressed. Aggression. Aggression will take over, which I have sworn to stop...

Who has sworn though? I was, after all, a pupper, a shell filled with nonexistent memories by the Jedi. Couild such a nothing stop the world's end?

I cannot stop my screams as I launch back at him. I am getting weaker and he feels it.

Suddenly one of the doors slide open.

It's Bastila. She's gotten themselves free somehow! She tells me to go back to the Ebon Hawk while she holds Malak off.

No, my mind yells at me. I must stay.

Carth is talking to me but I am not listening, lost in the debates of my own self. He grabs my hand, shakes me, telling me I have to go.

He has just touched the body of Darth revan, I think. The woman who killed his family. Will I remember those? I don't want to remember. That wasn't me.

We have to go.

I glance back at Bastila, her yellow two-bladed lightsaber clashing against Malak.

Okay, I say, turning back to Carth. We'll go.

With clenched fists, I begin to run. Away from this place, hoping I did not just leave Bastila to die. Or worse. Although I have no idea how she could defeat him. But if I stay, we lose even more.

We manage to escape, getting back on my ship. The ship. Someone else's ship, a stolen ship, a gang leader's ship.

My crewmates await me. If only they knew who I was...

It is not long before they find out. After we catch our breaths and announce that Bastila has remained there, Carth asks if I want to tell them what we found out about me, or should he tell them...

I say I tell them. It is about me after all. In a way. The surprise Jedi, with hair tied together cozily with a band, a lightsaber in one hand and Naga Sadow’s poison blade in the other.

The surprise is obvious. Mission storms me with questions. Big Z is, as always, adorable and loyal and honest, he does not mind whatever I have been called. I am not sure he really understands.

Canderous pays respect to me because of what Revan has achieved in battle. He sees so little. But I am grateful now for this.

It turns out that HK-47 was originally Revan’s droid. Why am I not surprised? The irony of fate… I cannot hold back a laugh at this point. I get a few odd glances. Especially from Carth, I bet, although I put him at the end of my list in asking what they think of me now. I am terribly scared of facing him.

But in the end I do ask.

And to my biggest surprise he still does not want to kill me. His words say that he does not have any other choice but to follow me, but his face is full of the obvious doubts he has. I want to tell him so many things but I don’t have the words.

He avoids my gaze. I can feel him shiver mentally when I get closer. I don’t know if it is contempt or fear. I don’t know for how long will he be like this. Not accusing. Not questioning. Just avoiding.

It pains me. But I will prove him I am not Revan anymore. I have never been, not in this life. And I never will be.

I will make sure that he can trust me again.


End file.
